IG Report Exposes Dramatic Failure of Obama's Union Financial Disclosure Headed by a Union Consultant

In 2009, NRTWC exposed John Lund union consultant and  Obama US Department of Labor (USDOL) appointee to oversee union financial reporting.  Lund has been a union consultant for decades and he specifically helped union complete and prepare union financial disclosure reports for the USDOL.  These are the same reports that he now enforces.  But, the USDOL Inspector General’s audit of the same report that Lund’s office had previously reviewed found that 92% of the filers had violated the Labor Management and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) while Lund’s group found only a 16% violation.  From FreeEnterprise.com:

OLMS conducts audits of select unions each year to evaluate their compliance with the law’s reporting requirements. The recent OIG report looks at how effective these audits have been and whether OLMS can properly measure its own performance.

How rigorous is the audit program? Not very. The OIG report states that “OLMS did not determine overall if its [audit program] was effective in detecting criminal and civil violations of the LMRDA to improve safeguards of union assets.” In other words, OLMS cannot demonstrate whether it is effectively promoting union transparency and financial integrity. As an example, according to the OIG report, in a sample of 513 audits, OLMS only identified violations in 81 (16%) of the audits. However, when OIG reviewed the same 513 audits, it found that 473 audits (92%) contained violations of the federal disclosure requirements that should have been found by OLMS. Whether attributed to OLMS’s incompetence or union favoritism, this glaring disparity is simply unacceptable.